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mikeszekely

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  1. mikeszekely
    I'm not an expert on such things, so all I can say is that I couldn't tell. If I had to guess, though, no. I'd assume intakes and ductwork that would feed air to the engine on the back.
  2. mikeszekely
    Just got back. Long movie; I went to a 10:00 show, I'd say the film actually started at 10:30 and ran until 1:15. Spoiler-free, it was a really good, really grounded movie that actually had a decent character arc for Batman besides "crime killed his parents so now he punches crime in bat pajamas." And the car was awesome.
  3. mikeszekely
    You mean that square on his abs, under his chest? Yeah, it folds down separately on the TR figure, but I always though it was some kind of support- too small and set too far back to really reflect much light through the chest and slide (although I gather that it worked better on the G1 toy? I'll know in a few days). On SS Perceptor the hinge for his chest runs through it, so an entire T-shaped panel that incorporates both his chest and abs fold down together as one solid piece.
  4. mikeszekely
    Last I heard XTB was shooting for summer, but they're always late and their production gets shuffled. I think their next release will be the red Omnibot.
  5. mikeszekely
    Perceptor is a character that I loved as a kid, but hasn't seen much love from others. I mean, his first toy since the original G1 was a tiny Cybertron Red Alert repainted in Perceptor's colors. In 2010 we got our first real Deluxe-class Perceptor, but he turned into a truck instead of a microscope. It wouldn't be until just five years ago when we finally got a new transforming microscope. Things weren't much better in the land of unofficial Transformers, either. KFC was first out of the gate, with a Deluxe-sized IDW-inspired figure that looked OK but suffered from notoriously bad QC. Planet X did one based on his appearance in the Fall of Cybertron game, and Fans Toys gave us an MP-ish option (also with pretty poor QC), but all of those figures were out even before 2017's Titans Return. But when it rains it pours, I guess. In the last month or two we got MP releases from both XTB (review here) and Fans Toys. And now Hasbro's replacing the Titans Return figure with a new Deluxe-class Studio Series 86 Perceptor. The new Studio Series figure comes out of the box swinging for the fences. It's clear that Hasbro's going hard for that Sunbow look. Love it or hate it, he's got the the weird, chonky body but slimmer scope of the Sunbow model. Hasbro opted for a duller cornflower blue that better matches the animation than toy-inspired cerulean shade seen on the TR figure. SS Perceptor likewise eschews the silver color used on TR Perceptor's abs, chest, and dials for a pearlescent white. It makes for a very cartoon-accurate figure, right down to the red notch at the top of his pelvis. From the side we can see that SS Perceptor looses some of the extra details, including the toy-inspired tampos, for a cleaner bot mode. But as we continue to the back we come to my first big gripe with the SS figure... that gaping hole in the back. Now, sure, his forearms also have gaps, but almost every Hasbro figure with fists that fold into the forearms have that gap so I'm not going to keep harping on it. But when was the last time Hasbro put out a figure with a huge gaping hole on his back where the head just tucks in? On a Core-class, maybe? Would it have killed Hasbro to put a hinged cover back there, ala ER Prime, Siege Soundwave, Kingdom Blaster, etc? Wherever the budget for a back cover went, it wasn't accessories. Perceptor comes with just this single pistol. I dig it, though. It's pretty cartoony. G1 toy fans may lament the lack of the bigger rifle or the missile launcher that the G1 toy had, but I'm good. It's a fair sight better than the sniper rifle with a Titan Master seat that came with TR Perceptor, anyway. SS Perceptor improves over the TR version with articulation, too. His head is on a ball joint with minimal sideways and downward tilt. Upward tilt technically isn't better, but you can use the transformation hinge to fake a bit more. His shoulders are ball joints that swivel and move laterally 90 degrees. His biceps swivel, and his elbows bend 90 degrees. Sadly he lacks any wrist swivel, but he does have a waist swivel. His hips can move forward, backward, and laterally 90 degrees. His thighs swivel, and his knees can bend about 120 degrees. His toes can bend down, and his ankles can pivot up to 90 degrees. In addition to holding his gun in either hand, he's got peg holes on the outside of either shoulder, on the outside of either leg, under either foot, and one on the small of his back. There's also one on the hinge under his scope. I feel like things are starting to take a hit again in microscope mode. TR has the black panel with the scope on it across the top, which I feel helps with the notion that it's not just his arms sticking up from the top. To be fair, though, arms sticking from the top is pretty Sunbow accurate, though, but if they insist on going that route then maybe they should have but the red elbow hinges on him? Even if I give the arms a pass we still have to look at the legs. They're a little closer together on the TR toy, and they actually tab into the shoulders to give the whole thing a more solid feel. The end result, I suppose, doesn't look bad on it's own, just more like a robot doing yoga than a purposeful microscope than the TR toy. Perceptor doesn't do much in this mode. The scope is on a pair of hinges, friction where the blue armature connects to his body and ratcheted where the scope connects to the armature. There's no swivel, though. The dials on his arms don't turn, but neither does the one on the scope this time, so the lens doesn't move. And yeah, from the back you can see the back of Percy's head between his shoulder blades. I guess nothing's stopping you from not swiveling his head and having his face visible there. Despite not being a feature in the '86 movie, or at all in cartoon that I can recall, SS86 Perceptor does have his tank mode. He's even got molded faux treads on his legs that show in this mode. What I'm finding interesting here is that I don't recall TR Percy having the tank mode in his instructions, but it was included more like an Easter egg, while SS Percy has instructions for the tank mode. Yet, again, I think TR Percy is a bit more purposeful, with an extra hinge on his chest plate to give his Titan Master a seat and blue fold-out treads under his feet like the G1 toy had, whereas SS86 Perceptor just bends his legs around so they tab into his forearms. Plus the treads on TR Percy are painted black, while they're just molded into the red on SS86. Speaking of treads, the TR figure has translucent wheels under those foot treads and on his butt, so his tank mode rolls. The SS86 version has no wheels, so he just sits or slides. However, as a Studio Series figure priority should be rightly on nailing the robot mode over a G1 toy feature that wasn't in the cartoon, so I'm not going to ding him for falling behind the TR version here. Whichever alt mode you choose, you've got places you can plug in his gun (but nothing purposeful that really tucks it away). In scope mode, the holes on his shoulders, legs, and back are your obvious choices. They're all covered in tank mode, but you can still use the peg hole under the scope's hinge. Studio Series 86 Perceptor isn't without his disappointments, mostly being the lack of a cover for his head storage on his back and that his legs don't do more to transform in microscope mode, leaving them rather wide apart and without the ability to lock in place like the TR version. Despite these drawbacks, the robot mode is slightly taller than the TR version, with significantly greater cartoon accuracy and improved articulation, not just with the addition of a waist swivel and ankle pivots but with better joint tolerances all around. For a character that spends as little time in alt mode as Perceptor anyway I do think that the SS86 version is an overall improvement over the Titans Return figure and a safe recommend from me.
  6. mikeszekely
    Y'know, maybe Legends is still too big. Fortunately, long-time maker of 3rd party accessories is filling a void I didn't know existed until I needed a little extra something or I was going to get hit with shipping on something else. Today, we're taking a look at Prime Commander, an Optimus Prime so tiny he makes Core-class seem huge. See, I wasn't kidding! Prime Commander comes up to Core-class Prime's waist, and Core-class Prime was already much shorter than Magic Square's Prime. Now, sure, at that size things have to be relatively simple, so he's got those flaps along the sides of his legs and the lower half of the cab face on his back. I might be nitpicking to suggest it would have also been nice if Dr Wu had painted the blue section of his undercarriage, especially since Hasbro couldn't be bothered to do it or the yellow details on a larger figure. The proportions are a bit squat as well. Still, while these are definitely things I'd be bagging hard on a MP-scale figure, a Titan Master standing on the shoulders of a second Titan Master is taller than this guy. He's similar in size to Siege Rumble or Kingdom Eject. And at this size I'm willing to forgive a bit more. Prime Commander comes with a fair amount of accessories to boot. You get the trailer, a rifle, and a pair of mechanical arms. The doors on the trailer open, and you can pop a Micromaster in there (or, presumably, other figures Dr. Wu decides to release in this line, of which a few exist and a few more are being solicited for preorders). And, like the G1/MP/Earthrise trailers, the entire thing splits open to reveal... well, not much. There's no Roller (although Dr Wu is making/has made one). There's no repair drone. The trailer doors are there, dangling off the sides, but there's no ramp. Like some takes I've seen on Prime's trailer, the bottom section with the wheels can detach, as it's kind of just pegged on, but it doesn't do anything. There's no fold out supports or anything, either. What there is inside, though, is a couple of peg holes. And we can do some stuff with that. For one, the mechanical arms have pegs on either side of the base, and the rifle has a peg on one side. Utilizing these pegs and holes allows you to store the arms and the gun securely inside the trailer, rather than just tossing them in the back and letting them rattle around. The arms also have pegs on the back of the base, so they can plug in perpendicularly and not just parallel. This allows you to pose them in sort of a repair bay look. Just be advised that the arms are not articulated. Prime Commander himself is, though, and arguably better than the official Micromasters. His head is on a ball joint that can swivel and let him look up, but nothing really down and no sideways tilt. His shoulders are on ball joints for swiveling and the backwards butterfly that's integral to most Primes transformations, but he's got a dedicated pin hinge for 90 degrees of lateral motion. His elbow is a ball joint that bends 90 degrees and doubles as a bicep swivel. No hand or wrist articulation. His waist doesn't actually swivel, but due to transformation he swivels between his chest and grill, and that's good enough. He's also got a bit of an ab crunch, although it looks a bit weird since his upper torso moves but the grill on his tummy doesn't. The ball joints on his hips get a little under 90 degrees forward, backward, or laterally. Sadly, they also have to provide what limited thigh swivel he's got. His knees can bend almost 90 degrees, and the toes are on ball joints so they can point down or they can swivel in such a way that he's got the appearance of ankle pivots. His gun is kind of interesting. Rather than using an extremely small peg and extremely small fist holes, the handle has a weird L-shaped handle. What happens is that butt of the rifle and the L-shaped handle work more like a C-clip, clamping on around his fist. Dunno how it'll hold up long-term, but for how it's quite secure. Prime Commander's transformation is fairly simple (although more complex than anything Hasbro's offering at this size), and indeed it's not far off from what the Core-class toy does. The simple nature of the transformation does mean that he's got fairly obvious legs and pelvis, and there's nothing really filling in the back and covering his head, either. That said, at least his toes fold down, and the panels on the sides of his legs fold around to fill in the bottom of the cab, so I think the truck is arguably better than the Core-class toy. Of course, you can block the view of Prime's head by pairing the cab with the trailer, which the Core-class toy lacks. And the whole package is so tiny it almost looks like you could park it in the Magic Square trailer (You can't, though; the repair drone takes up too much space, and the Dr Wu trailer is too big to close the Magic square trailer around. It'd totally fit in the Earthrise one, though). All of the wheels work, too, which is another thing that you don't always get at this size. The trailer connects by using a white tab with a notch on it. The notch fits around the two tabs that lock Prime Commander's legs together, and the hold is fairly solid. If you pick up the combined truck by the trailer, the cab isn't going to fall off. The notched tab is on a swivel, too, so the can can swivel for turning truck poses. I suppose, when seeing that Dr Wu is making these tiny figures now, two questions are going to spring to mind. The first, most obvious one is probably, "why would I want Transformers even smaller than Legends?" The second is, "Why is a 3rd party well-known for making accessories for official figures dabbling in whole figures after all these years?" I'd venture that the answer to both of those questions is the same. Namely, these little figures are accessories. Specifically, these figures are designed to compliment Hasbro's Titan Class figures. The Ark is a great example. You may recall from my review that it's got a button on the rear that drops down a ramp. This ramp is seen often in the G1 cartoon, but as I pointed out in my review the ramp on the toy is so small that only a Micromaster could actually use it. So instead of driving Roadhandler in and calling it a day, Dr. Wu went and made a Micromaster Optimus that can drive up it. Or, you can simply pose them together in bot mode, to give your Titan a larger sense of scale. And when you're re-enacting the Fall of Cybertron game with your Titan Metroplex, well, he looks a lot more intimidating with a tiny Prime on his shoulder than with one as big as his forearm. Which brings me to another point- these things are priced like accessories. In an area where even a new Legends-class figure from NewAge or Magic Square is guaranteed to be $50 or more, Prime Commander is right around $30, and he's available in regular, Nemesis, Shattered Glass, and dead colors. Other figures from this line are solid in pairs for the same price. So no, mini MPs these are not and I wouldn't seriously advocate collecting Prime Commander in place of a proper Legends/CHUG/MP Prime. As a reasonably-priced accessory for Hasbro's Titans, though, he's not a bad deal. I'd even recommend Prime Commander if you want a simple, small transforming Prime as a permanent desk bot. Because, I'll be honest, TFSource wanted me to ship a figure I'd had sitting in a stack waiting since November for something else to come along, and it was either spend at least $30 on something else or pay for shipping. I figured if I was going to have to spend I might as well have something to show for it, and at worst I'd have a little Prime for my largish Prime collection. I wound up enjoying this figure so much, though, that I ordered two more sets (Galvatron with Soundblaster, and Soundwave with Beachcomber) currently available and I'll probably preorder the others as they come out.
  7. mikeszekely
    I was just typing about this when @obakesan's post popped up. Yep, Sludge and Junkheap set for August and BB Ironhide and Arcee for October. Buzzworthy Cliffjumper and Kup are also up on Pulse, and it looks like they're supposed to be in stock but Cliffjumper's already showing sold out. I ordered Kup and preordered the other four, guess I'll have to keep an eye out at my local Target for Cliffjumper.
  8. mikeszekely
    I feel you. That Blaster is MP-scaled, though. I dunno. Is it still a prototype? The colors look kind of flat. The shape is more cartoon-accurate than KFC's, but I kind of prefer KFC's overall.
  9. mikeszekely
    Same. My buddy already got us tickets for Friday night.
  10. mikeszekely
    BBTS has pre-orders up for ThreeZero. $299.99, not too shabby.
  11. mikeszekely
    Preordered.
  12. mikeszekely
    That moveable section on the back of the thighs so get deeper knee bends is brilliant. Can't say I'm in the market for another Voltron, since I'm still pretty satisfied with the SoC, but I like what I'm seeing from ThreeZero. Side note... to me, the ability to take Voltron apart and turn him into his constituent lions is a must. But I have to say that I'm cool with cutting all the accessories to save money. He really only needs the sword- all the individual lion accessories wind up in a box (or a display stand, ala SoC).
  13. mikeszekely
    How's about a nice Repaint Roundup? First up, we have Deluxe-class Lift-Ticket. And... I dunno. It's Hoist, but red. There's zero mold changes, although this time around I'm less inclined to replace the pack-in weapon with a Nonnef gun-hand. I'd have like to have seen Hasbro replace the yellow pelvis and knees with black, as that'd have been more Diaclone-accurate. Nothing really different in alt mode, either; Hoist but red. Well, there's the addition of "Wrecker" on the caution stripe, which is Diaclone-accurate. I'm fortunate enough to be at a point in my life where $20-30 is more or less impulse buy territory for me, so I've got lots of time for Generations Selects Diaclone repaints. Heck, give me Yellow Trailbreaker to go with Lift-Ticket (but at least give that one a new toy-accurate head). That said, I'm thinking for most people Earthrise Hoist and Trailbreaker alone are enough of this mold. As it stands, the most interesting thing about Lift-Ticket is that he's got the "Legacy" logo on his otherwise non-descript brown Gen Selects box, which technically makes him my first Legacy figure. Simultaneously more and less interesting, we have Studio Series 86 Leader-class Starscream. On his own, there's not a lot to distinguish him from the Voyager-class Earthrise release. The blue plastic is a slightly lighter shade, the Decepticon badges on his wings are a little larger, and there's a little less paint around his knees. That said, there is a slight change to the mold... this time, Starscream has a pin hinge at the base of fingers, giving him the ability to open and close them like ER Optimus, SS86 Hot Rod, and Kingdom Rodimus. It's a very minor change, one that doesn't really address the complaints some had with the mold (no waist or wrist swivel, similar engineering to the very old Deluxe Classics release). What really makes this Voyager-class toy a Leader is the accessories. In addition to the same null rays the Voyager came with, you get an additional set with the pegs moved back further, a cape that's plastic, not soft goods, with a pair of hinges, two shoulder pads, a crown, and a throne. That's because this is a Studio Series release, and so they had to include accessories to recreate Starscream's most memorable scene in the movie. Well, maybe second-most memorable, but a battle-damaged Megatron and an Astrotrain playset to dump him out of probably would take more than a Leader budget. While we've already seen that he can wear the regular null rays on his shoulders, just like the regular ER release, those shoulder peg holes are necessary for securing the shoulder pads. That's where the second set of null rays comes in. See, there's peg holes on flaps inside the shoulder armor, and the second set of null rays has their pegs moved back so that they have the clearance to plug into those flaps. The cape has a peg on it that fits into the peg hole that was already on the back of this mold. And the crown simply has the right shape to fit snuggly around Starscream's head. As for the throne, it's got a deep and enough seat so that Starscream can sit on it, at least perched near the edge, with enough room for his backpack and wings. A nice side effect of having the seat that big is that you're not limited to having Starscream sit on the throne. I tried out a few other Decepticon leaders, and I got Megatron on there, perched near the edge like Starscream. If you're a Marvel comics fans, Shockwave fits on there really well, although he's short enough that his feet don't reach the ground. Or, if you want to take the coronation scene a step further and Galvatron already gave Starscream his hint then Galvatron will fit on the throne. The throne's not just a nice seat for your chosen Decepticon leader. It also provides handy storage for all of SS86 Starscream's accessories. The regular Null rays plug into ports on the back of the seat. The other set stays plugged into the shoulder pads, which in turn have ports to plug into in the hollow space under the seat. The cape pegs into the hole between the null rays, covering them up. Finally, there's a little notch under the front spike on the crown. This notch fits onto a small protrusion above the hole where the cape plugs into. Turns out that you'll probably need that space, too. Starscream's alt mode wasn't designed to carry them all. Sure, you can still put some null rays under his wings. Actually, between his wings, his forearms, and the ones under the horizontal stabilizers there's enough ports that you can mount all four null rays, if you want. The port on his back means you can still have the cape on him, too, albeit at an angle. Of course, we're just getting silly now, and there isn't really a good way for the jet to interact with the crown or throne. Oh, one final word about the jet- there's a few deco changes here, too. We already mentioned the lighter blue plastic and larger Decepticon badges. We can also see that his vertical stabs are just plain blue. This is something that HasTak apparently thinks is accurate to the cartoon. I re-watched the "my foot" scene from the '86 movie, and you don't really get a good look at them so I can't say if that's an accurate movie detail or not. Between the animation model and looking at different images from the cartoon his vertical stabs have been portrayed pretty inconsistently, from solid blue to something akin to the Earthrise version to something like the ER version but inverted. My personal preference is for some kind of stripe. One cartoon detail that SS86 did pick up are the two gunmetal-painted blocks near the 5mm port on his spine. Those spots weren't on the ER toy, but they do appear in the animation where the animators copied the hinges on the G1 toy's wings. If, for some reason, you never got around to picking up ER Starscream then SS86 is the one to get, as he's got the articulated fingers, slightly more cartoony deco, and loads of extra cool accessories. If you already have the ER toy, though, the minimal differences to the figure itself make SS86 kind of a hard sell that's ultimately determined by how badly you want the extra coronation gear and throne. I personally don't regret buying Starscream again; I think the coronation gear is worth it. But I am kind of left wondering what to do with my original ER one. Maybe I'll take a stab at repainting him in G2 colors...
  14. mikeszekely
    I was pretty pumped for Forbidden West, too, except for two things- -Sony's insistence that "next-gen" PS5 games should cost $70 -I wanted to replay Zero Dawn, since I'd forgotten most of the plot, and I picked it up on Steam since I figured it'd look nicer. Now, I remember really loving it the first time I played it, but I was not getting into it at all on the replay. I'll still likely pick up Forbidden West at some point, but I'm thinking that "some point" is going to be well after release on some kind of a discount.
  15. mikeszekely
    Feels like I should have had this up over the weekend, but to be honest some personal issues have had me in a bit of a funk lately, and I really didn't feel like transforming everyone and putting this thing together. This thing being Generation Toys' Guardian, their combined Defensor. Admittedly, I think Guardian looks cool. The realistic, modern alt modes come through on this guy every well. The fencing and spotlights are cool details on the torso, and I dig the red accents. Some elements, like the way part of the roof with the rotors shifts up over the canopy on Blades reminds me of Maketoys' Defensor, which was a similarly modernized take on the character. Size-wise, by now there will be more or less universal agreement that Guardian is too small to be Masterpiece when combined, as he's certain to be significantly shorter than MMC or XTB's (assuming that MMC's is the same size as their Bruticus and XTB's is the same size as their Menasor). He will, however, fit it just fine with Unique Toys' Abominus, GT's Devastator, Warbotron's Bruticus and Computron, TFC's Piranacon, etc. Which, y'know, was probably a lot more exciting five years ago when GT announced this thing. So, a few notes on him... that white piece that came with Foo Fighter that we didn't really talk about? Well, when you transform Blades into his arm mode (as above) you'll notice that his arms don't actually tab together. There are some flaps on them that do, but it's a pretty tenuous grip. The white part fits over the flaps on Blades' arms, locking the whole thing together much more securely. Unfortunately, that might be about the only thing that's secure on him, as the panels that grab into his waist don't do the best job at it, and the roof kind of just lays over the canopy. Oh, and that blue part that goes on Foo Fighter's alt mode but not his robot mode? Doesn't have a purpose in combined mode, either. Foo Fighter's guns double as guns for Guardian, but they do a bit of transforming on their own. The barrels slide out to make them bigger, and the handles that Foo Fighter hold fold in while larger silver handles fold out. This is the part where I'd put him in a dynamic pose and write about the articulation. You may have noticed that this is not a particularly dynamic pose. This is because I have nothing but problems with him. His head doesn't want to stay in place atop his torso. The ratchet for his shoulder rotation on First Aid is either defective or broken, because it feels super soft and does not support the weight of his arm. On Blades, the inability of the panels that are supposed to lock into his waist to actually lock in means that his forearm bends inward. The way-too-tight hip ratchets on Foo Fighter are still way too tight for Guardian, so I just don't feel comfortable messing with them. Other stuff might not break outright while you're messing with him, but his abs want to split apart, the sides of his chest keep coming untabbed, the windows along his back don't stay in, and twice now I've had one of the spotlights near his neck pop off. Top it all off with the fact that the tolerances for the tabs on his guns that are supposed to go into slots on his wrists are a bit off so he holds them a bit poorly. As you'd expect from a figure announced before the Menasor Wars, Guardian is a dated design that already had an uphill battle. But where GT had an opportunity to finish strong and carve a niche with fans who like the more stylized, IDW-esque designs and 15" combiners you get the impression that they just gave up. Despite taking five years this thing still feels rushed. This set is plagued with questionable design decisions that don't hold up in 2022, magnified by poor materials and shoddy construction. To be frank, while the individual bots range from poor to pretty decent on their own and the combined Guardian looks kind of cool, once you start to handle him it becomes evident that he's trash. Utter rubbish. I do not, in any capacity, recommend this set. At this point, even if you're thinking that you prefer the stylized look over a more G1 design, even if you're looking for a shorter companion piece for TFM's Menasor or GT's Devastator, you're still going to have a much better time if you just buy MMC's instead.
  16. mikeszekely
    That's the only real issue I had with it, although I had a few minor niggles with specific things (like there's these thin butts that fully fill in the wing root in alt mode that hang loosely but mostly out of sight in bot mode). I liked it a lot more than any of the official MP Starscreams. Only reason I didn't buy one myself was because I already have the Maketoys Seekers, and Crimson Wing didn't seem like enough of an upgrade. If they do the Coneheads, though, I'll probably replace the ToyWorld ones.
  17. mikeszekely
    To be fair, Prime's personality is sort of trucker dad, and I'm not sure I wanna see trucker dad as an anime girl.
  18. mikeszekely
  19. mikeszekely
    Didn't find any in stores yet, but I finally got the inaugural Core-class entry into the Studio Series line. It's Ravage, from the Bumblebee movie. Aesthetically, the sculpt is very accurate to the movie but I do have two complaints. The first one is a pretty common gripe with the Studio Series line, and that's a lack of paint. There's that white paint on his biceps and thighs, but none on this forelimbs. This is despite the fact that his forelimbs very clearly have white over most of the bare metal surfaces... and we're assuming that the gray plastic on his forelimbs is meant to be the bare metal, since it's the same gray plastic used for his back and tail, parts that are silvery metal color in the film. My other main complaint is totally not Hasbro's fault, it's the movie's. Ravage is supposed to be a cat, specifically a jaguar. With his long, narrow snout, though, Bumblebee Ravage looks more like a wolf to me. I think Ravage is a bit small compared to previous Core-class figures like Rattrap or the smaller G1 guys. He's definitely bigger than Siege Ravage, though, or the Ravage figure that came with Grindor. He comes with a fair amount of accessories, too. You get his hip-mounted guns, which have a decent enough sculpt but no paint, which is a shame because the solid color isn't accurate. What does have some paint is the missile launcher, which has bits of silver, and the other bit which is entirely painted silver. Ravage's head can tilt up a little or down a lot, and his jaws can open. His shoulders are on ball joints for swiveling, and they give him a very slight lateral range. His elbows bend 90 degrees, both forward and backward, and a hinge at the wrist allows his paws to bend up and down. His rear legs are similar, with ball joints for swiveling and limited spread and knees that bend 90 degrees in either direction. Where things get a little different is that Ravage has a hinge for his digitigrade ankle, then an additional hinge at the base of his paws' toes. Finally, his tail has hinge at the base mostly for transformation, but it does allow him to lift his tail up or droop it down. The hip guns go, well, on his hips. The missile launcher plugs into his back. By virtue of being pegs in holes, the hip guns can swivel up/down and the missile launcher can rotate around. The last silver painted bit has a peg on it, and that peg allows you to attach it to Ravage's underbelly. However, this is not something you'd have seen in the movie. What you can do, though, is use another peg on the back of it and plug it into the shoulder cannon on Studio Series Soundwave. Yes, this piece is modeled off the tip of G1 Soundwave's rifle, not his shoulder cannon, but since SS Soundwave's rifle doesn't look anything like G1 Soundwave's, the homage goes on the shoulder cannon. Ravage's transformation is decided uncomplicated. Most of his accessories can stay on, but there's some partsforming involved to move them to different spots. Otherwise, he kind of just curls into a ball, with specific places to position his legs so they can lock into place. The result is a box, with a slightly smaller height and width than Siege Ravage. However, he's much, much thicker. As noted, the hip guns come off the hips, but plug into his pelvis just behind his hips. The missile launcher comes off his back and goes into the underbelly peg hole before you curl his body over it. If you don't have Soundwave and you want a spot to store the silver tip, you plug it onto his back where the missile launcher was. You'll need to leave it off Ravage, whether you put it on Soundwave's shoulder cannon or not, if you want to stuff Ravage into Soundwave's chest. Ravage is designed to fit in there and you can get the door closed. I'll note that pushing him in far enough to close the chest door on Soundwave did start to push out the panel on Soundwave's back, though. I'm not sure if the tolerances are off a little, or if it's something I did wrong. Well, ultimately Ravage is a lot like Soundwave. He's a fairly screen-accurate figure in one mode with a pretty weak alt mode. He's better built and with better articulation than his Siege counterpart, but the small size doesn't totally make him feel worth the price, even with all of the accessories. As a figure on his own, I probably wouldn't recommend him. That said, I hope buying him encourages Hasbro to continue to use the Core-class in the Studio Series, specifically SS86 to give us better G1 tapes that'd either work with Siege/Netflix Soundwave or an improved SS86 Soundwave. And, if you have Bumblebee Soundwave he's a bit easier to accept less as a standalone figure and more as an accessory pack for Soundwave. In other words, pass on Ravage if you're passing on Soundwave, but if you got/will get Soundwave then Ravage is a recommend from me.
  20. mikeszekely
    Almost exactly four years ago I reviewed Generation Toys' Sarge, the first member of their Protectobots. Today, I finally have the final member with Foo Fighter, their take on Hot Spot. Was he worth the wait? Well, out of the box I was thinking he doesn't look too bad. Pictures make him seem a little chunkier than he actually is. He does have big hands and kind of Popeye forearms, but he's really not too bad otherwise. He's definitely a big boy, though, coming in half a head taller than their Motormaster. As is the case with GT, Foo Fighter has a stylized aesthetic, with more of a toy-style head. That said, he's got some other nods to his G1 self with silver paint on his chest, shoulders, pelvis, and knees where the G1 toy had stickers, and wheels in the shoulders, chest, and shins like the G1 toy (and cartoon). My biggest beef with Foo Fighter's appearance is going to be one of my main sources of grief with this figure in general, namely his backpack. It's made up of not just the ladder, which I'd accept, but also Defensor's head and most of his chest. A lot of work goes into folding it up, and it's still huge. Fortunately his hips and ankles are very strong joints, so while he is rather back heavy he doesn't seem to be in danger of tipping, at least not from a neutral stance. Foo Fighter comes with a handful of accessories. You get the hands for Defensor. You get a small white panel that we won't talk about until we combine him, as it has no place or purpose on Foo Fighter's robot or truck modes. You get a blue cover we will be talking about. You get two mirrors that come in a plastic baggy- these seem to be the only ones that aren't supposed to be attached when you take him out of the package, but trust me, there are other small silver bits on him that will probably fall off and may have done so in shipping. Finally, you get two fireball cannons. I dig the look of these, with the translucent orange bits. The articulation on Foo Fighter feels pretty dated. His head seems to be on a hinged swivel that can look up about 30 degrees, down a bit, and you can fake a bit more downward by using the transformation joint. His shoulders rotate, but GT decided to use the transformation hinge in his chest for lateral movement. That means that his shoulders can move laterally if his arms are straight down, but if you rotate his arm forward at the shoulder the lateral joint just turns his arm 90 degrees. His biceps swivel. His elbows bend a little over 90 degrees on a single hinge. Note that there's a transformation hinge between the shoulder and bicep that bends his arm backward, too. His wrists swivel. His hands have a fixed thumb, an separate index finger hinged at the base and middle knuckles, and the other three fingers are a single piece hinged only at the base. His waist swivels, but you better believe all that kibble on his back gets in the way, and there's no ab crunch. His hips are ratcheted, but the joints are WAY too tight. They can move 90 degrees laterally, for sure. I think they could, in theory, go 90 degrees forward (but probably only a click or two backward). The amount of force required to move it makes me worried about breaking it, though. His thighs swivel, and his knees bend 150 degrees or so on ratcheted double joints. His feet don't tilt up, but they have a ratcheted downward tilt and about 90 degrees of pivot. The smaller handles on his guns seem meant to go with Foo Fighter's hands. They look almost like they have a Maketoys/Fans Hobby-style rail on the them that should fit into something on his hands... but there doesn't seem to be anything that they attach to. It's really just the friction of his fingers holding the guns, but that seems adequate. Unfortunately, what's less adequate is that the transformation joint I mentioned, between his shoulder and bicep. I tried to pose Foo Fighter with his arm rotated forward at the shoulder and the elbows bent a bit, so he'd be pointing the gun at the camera. The weight of the gun causes the transformation joint to bend and his arm to droop back down, though. Transforming Foo Fighter into his truck mode is kind of a bear. Well, actually, tucking away his head and then using his arms and legs to make 90% of the truck is actually pretty easy, (although my copy was misassembled; I had to take him apart enough to swap those silver steps under his doors). The bear is the ladder and the rear of the truck, which is on a long armature with a number of accordion hinges and bits that need to move a certain way to allow other parts to move around. Seriously, you'll spend longer futzing with that ladder than you will on the rest of the transformation. Also, not sure how clear it is in this picture, but that's a big, empty gap at the back of the cab there. GT does have a solution, though. First, you take the combined-mode fists (which do not store on bot mode), and you curl in the fingers like so. Then you drop them into the gap. Finally, you get that blue panel (which also serves no bot-mode purpose) and use it to cover up the hands. Once the hands are covered up, the truck looks pretty good, for the most part. The cab has lots of real world details (although I'm missing a silver piece; whether it fell off or was always missing I couldn't say). You can see where the packaged mirrors go, but I honestly suggest just leaving them in the box because they definitely will fall off. Also, see the back of the truck. I'll give GT credit for trying, with the railing and all, btu that does NOT look like the back of a firetruck. The sides of the truck have some paint and a number of panel lines indicating compartments, but not the hose or gauges the G1 toy and animation model had, nor the stabilizers. And while I appreciate that GT tried to give him some tampoed shields, the "Guardian FF" is not a substitute for some kind of fire department, and the "Foo Fighter" over the wheels makes me think he's half firetruck, half tour bus. And no fireballs on the doors! Oh well. The ladder can swivel, raise up, and extend, and he does roll on rubber tires. And should you desire, you can store his guns on the ladder by folding in the handles and then using small pegs on the sides of the guns to plug them into small holes on the base of the ladder. Alright, I'm going to cut to the chase... Foo Fighter isn't very good. I've already mentioned his huge backpack and how it's kind of a pain to transform, how the back of the truck is a bit messy, and how is articulation is kind of sub par. Honestly, if that were his only issues I might simply say that this is a design that was a lot more appealing a long time ago when they first announced it, but the industry has kind of evolved and GT hasn't. Little things would have helped, like maybe finding a way to store the blue roof panel on robot mode, maybe use it to hide the mostly-visible Defensor head on his back. Unfortunately, those aren't his only problems. He's got serious joint tolerance issues. He's got little bits that fell off while I was handling him. He arrived misassembled. The plastic he's made of feels kind of gross, both flexible yet brittle. I'm loathe to mess with him too much because I expect him to break at some point. I have to say, after four years this was not a release I was really looking forward to, and bought mostly because I'd already bought the other four and just wanted to finish them off and be done with them, and even with my low expectations I'm pretty disappointed with him. So, I guess I'm glad he came out for people like me that still wanted to finish this set, but I definitely do NOT recommend him.
  21. mikeszekely
    Well there you go. Psycho transforms, so he's a Gobot.
  22. mikeszekely
    Because they have different name tags. Serious question, I've never seen Cobra. Did his car transform in the anime, or is that something Popy added when they produced the Psychoroid under their Machine Robo brand?
  23. mikeszekely
    The Psychoroid helpfully tells you that it's a Pyschoroid. Super Gobot Psycho, however, informs you that he is, in fact, a Future Machine.
  24. mikeszekely
    It's like someone said, "Hey, you know that name we've had for longer than some Gundam fans have been alive and thus synonymous with the brand? What if we changed it to the most generic thing we can think of?”
  25. mikeszekely
    Netflix's "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" approach doesn't help. For every Disenchanted or Stranger Things there's twenty other Netflix Originals that I don't care about taking up real estate on the main screen. Meanwhile, shows I actually care about have long since migrated to Hulu or HBO. I'd probably dump Netflix except my wife likes watching Chinese dramas.
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